► The purpose of this exploratory study was to uncover the way student bloggers depicted their colleges and universities through the use of frames on official…
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▼ The purpose of this exploratory study was to uncover the way student bloggers depicted their colleges and universities through the use of frames on official university sanctioned blogs. Using content analysis, this study analyzed blog posts (n = 2,471) from 92 institutions, representing 349 individual bloggers. Of special interest were the specific attributes and tone used by bloggers to describe their institutions and the use of framing mechanisms and dialogic features. The study discovered that bloggers overwhelmingly used the social life and academics frames when posting and were mostly positive in tone. About one-third of posts included pictures, most which showed images of interest to prospective students. The study also revealed that institutions did not take full advantage of the potential for two-way communication through recruitment blogs. Implications for public relations practitioners are discussed.
Advisors/Committee Members: Kaye D. Sweetser Trammell.

Sines, K. R. (2007). Recruiting millennials: how official admission blogs depict colleges and universities from a public relations perspective. (Masters Thesis). University of Georgia. Retrieved from http://purl.galileo.usg.edu/uga_etd/sines_karen_r_200705_ma

Chicago Manual of Style (16th Edition):

Sines, Karen Renée. “Recruiting millennials: how official admission blogs depict colleges and universities from a public relations perspective.” 2007. Masters Thesis, University of Georgia. Accessed February 22, 2019.
http://purl.galileo.usg.edu/uga_etd/sines_karen_r_200705_ma.

Sines KR. Recruiting millennials: how official admission blogs depict colleges and universities from a public relations perspective. [Masters Thesis]. University of Georgia; 2007. Available from: http://purl.galileo.usg.edu/uga_etd/sines_karen_r_200705_ma

California State University – Sacramento

2.
Domek, Andrew G.A study of priming in California newspaper coverage of the death penalty.

► This study investigates California newspaper articles for evidence of priming about the death penalty and attempts to determine if there is evidence of priming within…
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▼ This study investigates California newspaper articles for evidence of priming about the death penalty and attempts to determine if there is evidence of priming within newspaper coverage of this specific issue. Rather than weighing the death penalty as an issue of importance verses another issue, this study looked at which side, if any of the death penalty debate receives the most favorable coverage in articles. Due to the large number of articles about the death penalty in recent years, and the diversity of ways that the subject matter is presented, it was necessary to restrict the population of articles to a more manageable size. As such, articles about California???s new death penalty protocols are studied from January 1, 2009 to September 30, 2009, and fifteen unique assertions about the death penalty protocols were discovered. Using a qualitative content analysis modeled after Kim and McCombs (2007), and an additional coding of the first quote found in each article for bias for or against the death penalty, this study found no evidence of priming.
Advisors/Committee Members: O'Connor, Barbara.

Domek, A. G. (2010). A study of priming in California newspaper coverage of the death penalty. (Masters Thesis). California State University – Sacramento. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/10211.9/106

► Studies conducted on presidential agendasetting have alluded to the important role that ideas can play in the process. However, this aspect of the process…
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▼ Studies conducted on presidential agendasetting have alluded to the important role that ideas can play in the process. However, this aspect of the process has gone largely undeveloped. This study draws on ideational theory to develop a framework for studying the role of ideas in the presidential agendasetting process and applies the framework in a case study of President Jimmy Carter???s energy policy. The data for this study is drawn from interviews with presidential staff, government documents, periodicals, peer reviewed articles, and presidential speeches. The study offers a detailed illustration of the causal role that ideas can play in the presidential agendasetting process.
Advisors/Committee Members: Shoch, James.

► The primary focus of this study is to conceptualize and to develop a series of empirical models testing various mechanisms that might explain how a…
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▼ The primary focus of this study is to conceptualize and to develop a series of empirical models testing various mechanisms that might explain how a public information campaign and the resulting media coverage led to changes in the level of importance the public ascribes to air quality. The expressed purpose of the public information campaign was to focus attention on the issue of air quality and to change: (1) the publics perception of the importance of air quality; (2) attitudes about the social problem; and (3) specific behaviors, such as single occupancy driving. The issue advocates also sought to focus media attention on air quality, with the expectation that media coverage about the social problem would influence public concern. Therefore, public concern may change in response to the issue advocacy or the media coverage.
In each paper of this manuscript, a mechanism or moderator that may account for changes in issue importance was hypothesized. The first paper, entitled The Mechanism of Transference: Projection and Conformity in the Agenda-Setting Process, tests two competing theories (projection and conformity) that may mediate the relationship between media coverage and public concern. The second paper, entitled Testing the Homogeneity Assumption of Public Opinion, tests two competing theories (heterogeneity and homogeneity) that may moderate the relationship between media coverage and public concern. Finally, the third paper, entitled Talk Back: The Impact of Social Communications on Media Coverage and Issue Importance, tests the importance of a mechanism that permits a feedback loop from the public to the media, through social communications. In all cases, the mechanism or moderator was hypothesized at the aggregate or mass level, but the findings shed light on where researchers should look for individual-level effects.
Advisors/Committee Members: Henry, Gary (Committee Chair), Bostrom, Ann (Committee Member), Edmiston, Kelly (Committee Member), Lewis, Gregory (Committee Member), Nicholson, Stephen (Committee Member).

► Viewership for televised presidential debates has grown in recent years. The debates involving the major party nominees remain the most-watched political events in American politics,…
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▼ Viewership for televised presidential debates has grown in recent years. The debates involving the major party nominees remain the most-watched political events in American politics, and viewership for those held during the primary season are on the rise. During the 2012 Republican primary season, a record 20 debates were held. With millions watching the debates, they deserve scrutiny. The research on the effects of presidential debates up to this point has focused primarily on the first level of agendasetting related to questions and answers.
This research expanded that work by considering the second level of agendasetting, or attribute agendasetting. Through qualitative discourse analysis of the questions and responses, as well as measuring the amount of screen time provided each candidate, this study found that cumulatively, the more time a candidate received to answer questions, the less uncertainty there was about that candidate among voters surveyed in a national poll. It also found that debate questions structured with attributes that challenge presidential candidates do not correlate with negative voter preference for them. In fact, the opposite holds true. Implications for debate viewers and organizers are discussed.
Advisors/Committee Members: Poindexter, Paula Maurie (advisor), Dahlby, Tracy S. (committee member), McCombs, Maxwell E. (committee member), Rivas-Rodriguez, Mary M. (committee member), Stroud, Natalie J. (committee member).

The aim of this work is to identify a hypothesis examined 40 years ago this new form of communication. The proposal is to seek confirmation of the agenda-setting, or scheduling, on Twitter during the election for mayor of Sao Paulo in 2012. For that, we turn on three news portals that served as the "lab supplies", that help us in the quest for impact of this news on the Internet. From the definition of some terms that accompanied the three major candidates for mayor of SP, we went to a search for these terms on Twitter, through the tool "The Archivist". The terms were divided into "positive", "negative" and "neutral", to identify which type of content was further passed on. The survey results identified a greater impact in terms representing negative attributes of the candidates, analyzing the agenda of news portals as a way of reinforcing these negative attributes, proving the agenda of counter-politics on Twitter.

The news on the media are about the topics that most concern societies at any given time. Agenda-setting theory is about the ability of media to influence what people think and even their way of thinking. In a time of crisis and uncertainty, in Portugal, the effects of agendasetting are real for issues related to health policy.
Three of the more focused issues on the press, drawn from the analysis of content of six months editions of Newspaper "Diário de Notícias", coincide with the three main problems mentioned in a study of public opinion, applied by telephone to a sample of 300 people of the population of Lisbon. These problems appear in the same order of importance of the themes: 1) Funding; (2) Access and administration of Health Units; and (3) Human Resources. The public agenda is determined by the media agenda which seems to be influenced by political agenda, studied from the speech of privileged interlocutors/actors in the area of health and from the measures to the health sector in the memorandum of understanding, agreed between the Portuguese Government and the troika in 2011.
The analysis of the sources of information listed in the news indicates that government institutions are the most frequent, followed by Civil Society. Information flows downward but also in the opposite direction when the real life of citizens and the speech of individuals appear in the news.

With all the information conveyed daily by the media, there is a need on the part of
political power, by the media as well by the public in choosing a schedule and outline
of the most important topics. Access to information has become a daily necessity for all
sectors of society, even for the most info excluded.
The effects produced by the choice of certain topics over others is a factor of great
importance in the study of Agenda-Setting. This choice, along with gatekeeping and
news salience dynamics, have been taken in consideration in this study, applied to daily
newspapers.
In this study, as already mentioned, the main objective of the study if the news
salience was more practical information, understand what the issues over a timeline
previously selected were chosen most studied and worked in newspapers.

Liu, L. (2017). Beyond the Great Firewall: A Case Study of Inter-media Agenda Setting Effects between Chinese and Western Reporting on Corruption in China. (Thesis). University of Houston. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/10657/1861

Note: this citation may be lacking information needed for this citation format:Not specified: Masters Thesis or Doctoral Dissertation

Chicago Manual of Style (16th Edition):

Liu, Leiyu. “Beyond the Great Firewall: A Case Study of Inter-media Agenda Setting Effects between Chinese and Western Reporting on Corruption in China.” 2017. Thesis, University of Houston. Accessed February 22, 2019.
http://hdl.handle.net/10657/1861.

Note: this citation may be lacking information needed for this citation format:Not specified: Masters Thesis or Doctoral Dissertation

MLA Handbook (7th Edition):

Liu, Leiyu. “Beyond the Great Firewall: A Case Study of Inter-media Agenda Setting Effects between Chinese and Western Reporting on Corruption in China.” 2017. Web. 22 Feb 2019.

Vancouver:

Liu L. Beyond the Great Firewall: A Case Study of Inter-media Agenda Setting Effects between Chinese and Western Reporting on Corruption in China. [Internet] [Thesis]. University of Houston; 2017. [cited 2019 Feb 22].
Available from: http://hdl.handle.net/10657/1861.

Note: this citation may be lacking information needed for this citation format:Not specified: Masters Thesis or Doctoral Dissertation

Council of Science Editors:

Liu L. Beyond the Great Firewall: A Case Study of Inter-media Agenda Setting Effects between Chinese and Western Reporting on Corruption in China. [Thesis]. University of Houston; 2017. Available from: http://hdl.handle.net/10657/1861

Note: this citation may be lacking information needed for this citation format:Not specified: Masters Thesis or Doctoral Dissertation

This paper analyses and argues the media performance as political actors around the impeachment of former President Dilma Rousseff, in 2016, in Brazil. Specifically, it is proposed to understand the media influence on the crisis’ outbreak, pro-impeachment movements and public opinion. In this context, besides the literature research, had been done quantitative and qualitative research techniques. A survey had been applied as goal perceive the public opinion and a content analysis, in order to understand the formation of the media agenda, count with 154 magazine covers, 154 printed newspaper covers, 150 television journals and 828 news in online media, beyond a discourse analysis of part of it, in order to deepen knowledge. Still had been done qualitative interviews – in aim to perceive media influence from different perspectives. The results show the media’s influence and responsibility about the political crisis’ outbreak and the impeachment process

► The main aim of this thesis is to examine the agendasetting effects of Twitter users by exploring the use of hashtagUgandaDecides and the…
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▼ The main aim of this thesis is to examine the agendasetting effects of Twitter users by exploring the use of hashtagUgandaDecides and the retweet (RT) activity during the 2016 presidential election. I do this by applying the first level agendasetting theory which holds that the news media sets the public agenda. I apply a qualitative analysis using #UgandaDecides as a unit of analysis to collect tweets that received the most retweets to establish the actors tweeting during the study period. I conduct content analysis to establish the key issues/topics that received the most attention as per their level of frequency and prominence received through their retweet activity. Results in this thesis show that different actors were involved in determining the topics/issues on the twitter public agenda during the 2016 Uganda presidential election. For the pre-election period, the news media set the agenda by influencing the topics/issues for discussion as seen by the number of the retweets from their tweets. However, on Election Day, the public mainly ordinary citizens were more active in determining what topics/issues were discussed on Twitter, manifesting signs of reverse agendasetting. In this thesis, I thus conclude that Twitter can be empowering as it provides a space for ordinary citizens to participate in political discourse and that in a restrictive media environment, both media and public can use twitter as a participatory platform. The aspects of reversed agendasetting shown in this study are indicative of the changing media environment and how new power relations between different actors calls for the revision of the traditional agendasetting theory that the news media sets the public agenda.

► This dissertation unpacks the agendasetting process of energy as a policy issue from 2008 to 2015. It explores how and why hydraulic fracturing emerged…
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▼ This dissertation unpacks the agendasetting process of energy as a policy issue from 2008 to
2015. It explores how and why hydraulic fracturing emerged and developed as a policy
alternative in this regard. The agendasetting theory of John Kingdon is applied to guide this
analysis. Agendasetting examines how problems gain the attention of government so that
policy alternatives can be examined and identified. Kingdon explained this process through
three analytical streams: the problem stream, the policy stream, and the political stream, and
discussed how their convergence can result in a policy window wherein an issue comes to the
attention of policy makers and policy alternatives can be developed and decisions can be taken.
A qualitative research methodology was employed to explore all the events and the
participation of different actors which led to the identification of hydraulic fracturing as a policy
alternative. Data was collected through documentary analysis and was analysed using
qualitative thematic analysis.
The findings of this study have reflected the agendasetting theory of John Kingdon. As Kingdon
has argued, when the three streams are coupled together, it is an appropriate time to address
the problem and for a policy change. This is applicable in this study: the energy problem was
recognised, and a suitable policy solution was attached to problem, accompanied with a change
in the political stream. The window opens when the three streams are coupled together.
The window opened in 2008 when the energy problem became intense, during the period
when the country experienced load shedding. This was when the energy problem was
considered a crisis that demanded attention. Policy entrepreneurs advocating for hydraulic
fracturing saw the window of opportunity and pushed for their proposals to government
decision makers. A change in the political stream was also experienced. Important government
decision makers like the President and other administrators were interested in solving the
energy crisis and were in support of hydraulic fracturing. They considered hydraulic fracturing
as a feasible solution to the energy crisis.
Advisors/Committee Members: Rieker, Mark Ivan. (advisor).

In the 21st century, water scarcity due to pollution, increasing demand and mismanagement has become a global phenomenon of growing concern. Often depicted in media…
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▼

In the 21st century, water scarcity due to pollution, increasing demand and mismanagement has become a global phenomenon of growing concern. Often depicted in media reports, endorsed by global summits - such as the recent \"Rio+20C̈onference in 2012 in Brazil - and campaigned for by NGOs all over the world, freshwater issues play an important role within bigger debates on global environmental issues. Despite a clear increase in the intensity and scope of these issues over the last decades, they are not novel as such and have a history. This Ph.D. thesis analyzes the emergence and evolution of the freshwater topic on the international agenda since the early 1970s, when the first international freshwater-related conferences and conventions took place. In order to explain this genesis and evolution, the freshwater topic is situated within the broader international environmental agenda and is connected with International Relations scholarship on agenda-setting as well as international regimes. Subsequently, the empirical freshwater conventions and conference data is analyzed through these theoretical lenses, showing that the freshwater issue is in fact an umbrella topic which can be further subdivided into smaller water-related topics. The treatment of these sub-topics has led to conventions in two cases (wetlands and international watercourses) which are taken to be regimes in their own right, whereas others have so far remained limited to international conferences and events (sanitation, access to potable water etc.). Rather than seeing these as unconnected, individual regimes and conferences as has been done within contemporary scholarship, it will be argued that these in fact represent sub-regimes and parts of a bigger freshwater regime complex. Moreover, it will be argued that the origins of this regime complex are not due to specific countries´ deliberate aims of constructing international institutional overlap to subsequently explore forum-shopping opportunities to their advantage but, rather, that developments in this issue-area unintentionally resulted in this overlap for functional reasons.

Werner, A. F. (2015). Freshwater on the international agenda - emergence of a regime complex. (Doctoral Dissertation). University of São Paulo. Retrieved from http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/101/101131/tde-13102015-155516/ ;

Werner AF. Freshwater on the international agenda - emergence of a regime complex. [Doctoral Dissertation]. University of São Paulo; 2015. Available from: http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/101/101131/tde-13102015-155516/ ;

Texas A&M University

16.
Campbell, Kristin Lynn.
Struggling to set the campaign agenda: candidates, the media, and interest groups in elections.

► Democracy is best described as a struggle over competing ideals and values. One of the most important places where this struggle takes place is in…
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▼ Democracy is best described as a struggle over competing ideals and values. One of the most important places where this struggle takes place is in the electoral arena. My dissertation examines the struggle between candidates and their respective messages in this arena. Focusing on fourteen Senate races from 1998 and 2000, I examine, in depth, how the struggle over competing ideals takes place (or in some cases, does not take place) and whether some candidates are more successful than others at navigating their message through the political environment to voters. This study examines the impact of candidate skills and resources as well as state characteristics on the strategies candidates employ when emphasizing campaign issues. In addition, my dissertation focuses on the impact interest group advertising has on the candidates? campaign dialogue and analyzes media coverage in Senate races by comparing each candidate?s core message to the campaign information transmitted by the media to voters.
The analysis presented here reveals that candidates employ both multi-dimensional and unidimensional strategies. State party competition appears to offer the most plausible explanation for the variation in strategy across the states. Competition, rather than encouraging a multi-dimensional campaign strategy, appears to promote
convergence towards the median voter and a unidimensional strategy. Furthermore, this study suggests that candidates face a number of obstacles in trying to transmit their campaign message to voters. In addition to struggling against their opponent, candidates have to struggle against both interest groups and the media to get their message to the electorate. Just under one-half of the advertisements interest groups ran were successful at interjecting issues into the campaign debate. Furthermore, in over seventy percent of the Senate races included in this study, the media emphasized issues other than what the candidates were focusing on. While this may have the positive benefit of infusing more issues into the debate, it may also blur the lines of accountability?particularly if candidates have no intention of acting on issues emphasized exclusively by the media.
Advisors/Committee Members: Bond, Jon (advisor), Leighley, Jan (committee member), Ritter, Kurt (committee member), Hurley, Patricia (committee member).

► This study investigates California newspaper articles from a two year time period to identify the substantive and affective attributes that comprise print media coverage of…
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▼ This study investigates California newspaper articles from a two year time period to identify the substantive and affective attributes that comprise print media coverage of telemedicine. A total of 206 descriptions were identified and a qualitative content analysis was conducted in order to determine the major attribute categories for descriptions of telemedicine. Seven categories were revealed, including descriptions of: the technologies used for telemedicine, the ability to provide access to medical services, details of implementation, the quality of medical care, financial aspects, the convenience of using telemedicine, and other descriptions. Of these, over half of the descriptions focused on the technology or access attributes of telemedicine. All descriptions were also quantitatively coded for the level of affect. A Chi square analysis revealed that while descriptions were predominantly positive across all of the articles, the urban-based news sources tended to discuss telemedicine in a more positive tone than rural-based sources. Through the emphasis of the access and technology attributes, there is support for the premise that these attributes may become the most salient attributes to the audience. As the tone is predominantly positive, additional research is necessary to determine if this may serve to prime the audience to accept telemedicine.
Advisors/Committee Members: Stitt, Carmen R..

► This thesis aims to explore how interest groups influence the governmentâs decision of events by political contributions. First of all, this paper approves that when…
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▼ This thesis aims to explore how interest groups influence the governmentâs decision of events by political contributions. First of all, this paper approves that when the interest groups are risk-neutral, it shows positive correlation between the spending on rent-seeking by the firm and the commercial opportunity from business activities. Lobbying activities will improve the quality of events. But when government values the negative perception of the outsider, it is reluctant to hold large-scale events. The willing of passing the activity based budget of city councilors is affected by the possibility of being reelected. The higher the rate of being reelected is, the lower the activity level is.
Advisors/Committee Members: Tsao, Hai-tao (chair), Shan-Non Chin (chair), Tru-Gin Liu (committee member).

▼ Previous scholarly explorations of agenda-setting in
presidential campaigns have resulted in two competing theories
regarding how candidate select which issues receive their
attention. Issue Avoidance theory posits that candidates emphasize
their own strengths, even going so far as to avoid their opponents'
favored issues entirely. Issue Convergence theory argues the
opposite; suggesting candidates will direct attention to their
opponents' key issues in an effort to erode their support. Both
theories, however, neglect that issue attention is a finite
commodity for both the candidates and the public, a reality that
holds serious implications both for how candidates divvy their
attention across issues over the course of the campaign and the
susceptibility of candidates to agenda-setting efforts from their
opponents, the media, and other outside forces. In my dissertation
I propose a Double-Bottleneck theory of candidate attention under
which candidates choose to stress a small subset of "key" issues
that emphasize their strengths while sending a campaign message in
a way the public can follow. As a result, candidates are protective
of their primary issues and are largely insulated from outside
influence; however, the remaining lower importance issues are
largely unaddressed and are open to agenda-setting actions or other
outside influence. I test this theory through the use of several
unique datasets from the 2004 and 2008 presidential campaigns, and
offer an in-depth picture of which issues are chosen to serve as
the "key" issues of the campaigns and the dynamics of how candidate
attention to those issues change over the course of the race. My
theory suggests candidates will be largely unaffected by shifts in
attention from other actors for their most important issues, with
the largest exception coming from the debate they engage in with
their opponents over those policy areas. Further, as the salience
of an issue declines candidates will be more likely to be
influenced by outside sources as the candidates both possess less
expertise in these areas and also do not wish to complicate the
message they send to the voters. Empirical results offer support
for my Double-Bottleneck theory, indicating candidates' patterns of
attention to the top issues in 2004 and 2008 are largely unaffected
by outside forces, with the exception of major external events like
the financial crisis of 2008 that define the entire campaign. Lower
importance issues are open to influence by the media and other
actors; yet, these effects do not appear in a pattern consistent
enough to suggest any overt acts of agenda-setting. To this end,
despite the characterizations of campaigns as battlegrounds where
the candidates and media fight to set the agenda, for the most
part, significant acts of agenda-setting in presidential campaigns
is much less frequent than we might believe.

► Framing theory has emerged as one of the predominant theories employed in mass communications research in the 21st century. Frames are identified as interpretive packages…
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▼ Framing theory has emerged as one of the predominant
theories employed in mass communications research in the 21st
century. Frames are identified as interpretive packages for content
where some issue attributes are highlighted over other attributes.
While framing effects studies appear plentiful, longitudinal
studies assessing trends in dominant framing packages and story
elements for an issue appear to be less understood. Through content
analysis, this study examines dominant frame packages, story
elements, headline tone, story tone, stereotypes, and source
attribution for nuclear energy from 1991-2008 in the New York
Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post.
Unlike many content analysis studies, this study compares
intercoder reliability among three indices – percentage agreement,
proportional reduction of loss and Scott’s Pi. The newspapers
represented in this study possess a commonality in the types of
dominant frames packages employed. Significant dominant frame
packages among the four newspapers include human/health,
proliferation, procedural, and marketplace. While the procedural
frame package was more likely to appear prior to the 1997 Kyoto
Protocol, the proliferation frame packaged was more likely to
appear after the Kyoto Protol. Over time, the sustainable frame
package demonstrated increased significance. This study is part of
the growing literature regarding the function of frames over
time.

► With regards to the potential severity of increased antibiotic resistance around the world it is puzzling that the global response to this issue has…
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▼ With regards to the potential severity of increased antibiotic resistance around the world it is puzzling that the global response to this issue has not been more comprehensive. In this thesis I will examine the political frames on ABR formulated by the global network ReAct in an attempt to understand why this is the case. The frames of an issue, that is how it is described politically in different ways, are crucial for agenda-setting. Moreover, framing is an important part of the work of transnational advocacy networks. Since the acknowledgement of an issue in terms of agenda-setting is an important part of a global response, the frames of transnational advocacy networks make up the focus of this thesis. My findings suggests that the existence of multiple frames on ABR to some extent helps us understand the lacking response to ABR. The construction of the frames in terms of causality, and inparticular a general vagueness in terms of responsibility, is however the main finding.

► Globally, research has shown that media coverage of illicit drug issues can play an important role in influencing public opinion and shaping drug policies. However,…
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▼ Globally, research has shown that media coverage of illicit drug issues can play an important role in influencing public opinion and shaping drug policies. However, in Afghanistan, the world’s largest opium producer, very little is known about the media coverage of illicit drug issues. Afghan media, especially radio and television have developed dramatically during the past 11 years.
Using the theories of agendasetting and framing, this study explored what drug-related topics were covered in the Afghan news media; how were these topics covered; how were the health and social consequences of drug abuse depicted in the media; and how much time was devoted to drug related topics in the media. Employing content analysis, the study examined primetime news coverage of the two leading media outlets: Azadi Radio and Tolo Television from 1st March 2011 until 31st July 2011.
This thesis found the following types of imbalances in Afghan media reporting on illicit drug issues: 1) media reports on drug issues were heavily focused on supply reduction issues (81%) while paying considerably less attention to drug demand reduction issues (19%); 2) media predominantly framed illicit drugs as a law enforcement issue (83%) with only 15% of the paragraphs in the sample framing illicit drug as a public health problem; 3) media reporting on illicit drugs heavily relied on official sources (79%) lacking voices of the public health practitioners and drug addicts; 4) media coverage of illicit drug issues was heavily centered in Kabul (56%) with considerably less reporting from southern Afghanistan, which is the largest opium producing region.
This study, which is presumably the first of its kind, provides media organizations, policy makers, and public health officials with a broad picture on the drug-related information available to the public on the leading Afghan news outlets. In addition, it serves as a basis for future research on media coverage of illicit drug issues in Afghanistan.

► Throughout history, the United States Supreme Court has served as a major player in shaping the character and direction of public policy through the decisions…
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▼ Throughout history, the United States Supreme Court has served as a major player in shaping
the character and direction of public policy through the decisions it hands down. The issues that
have garnered the Court’s attention have also changed over time, suggesting that the type of cases
that receive certiorari fluctuate according to judicial preferences. Most research on certiorari has
highlighted the importance of this process for understanding judicial decision-making, especially
in regards to which cases are selected for review. But, we know less about the importance of issues
in the agenda-setting process, and why issues, not specific cases, explain agenda-setting. This
project brings together a theoretical framework that focuses on the influence of macro-level considerations
on certiorari with a methodological emphasis on explaining dynamic agenda-setting.
The macro-political theory of agendasetting produces three predictions about the dynamics
of issue attention on the Supreme Court. First, the Supreme Court’s issue attention should shift
toward policy domains over which Republicans exert greater issue ownership as the membership
of the Court becomes more conservative, and, conversely, the Court should pay greater attention to
policy domains over which Democrats have stronger issue ownership as the Court becomes more
liberal. Second, the Court’s issue attention should follow public perceptions of problems in the
political, economic, or social environment, leading the Court to take more cases in issue areas
where the American people identify important public problems. Finally, the Court’s issue agenda
should respond to changes in the political, economic and social environment that produce changes
in the volume of litigation activity in particular policy domains, influencing the composition of the
set of cases from which the Court constructs its docket and, therefore, its issue agenda.
Another contribution of this dissertation is the introduction of compositional dependent variable
models to judicial politics. This methodology examines the trade-off relationships that shape
the Supreme Court’s agenda over time, with the underlying theory that the composition of the
agenda reflects the relative importance of the Court’s partisan priorities. Using this approach, the
data indicate that the partisan composition of the Court alters the policy preferences represented
on the judicial agenda and that there are trade-off relationships that have been largely masked by
exploring the ebb and flow of issue attention across different issue areas separately.
The results indicate that issue attention by the U.S. Supreme Court is not merely the result
of the incidental aggregation of the policy domains in which individual cases are situated. The
Court’s attention to different issues is systematically associated with macro-political dynamics in
the ideological orientations of the Court’s members and the political environment. This mirrors
patterns of aggregate issue attention in the elected branches of national government and…
Advisors/Committee Members: Ura, Joseph D (advisor), Kellstedt, Paul M (committee member), Cook, Scott J (committee member), Goidel, Robert K (committee member).

► This dissertation is a study of contagion effects in policymaking. The policy process behaves in many ways like a complex system, which is characterized by…
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▼ This dissertation is a study of contagion effects in policymaking. The policy process behaves in many ways like a complex system, which is characterized by communication among actors, dynamic interaction, and evolution in behavior over time. As a result, the attention of policy elites rapidly jumps from issue to issue as they struggle to address an array of pressing issues and problems simultaneously. I argue that a process of issue contagion explains these rapid changes as policy elites are highly interdependent actors who are subject to cognitive limits, have incentives to closely monitor the political environment, and frequently mimic the behavior of their peers. Drawing on the methods of computational social science, I build a simulation model of agenda-setting behavior and examine issue contagion through an experimental research design. I test the empirical implications of the model by applying it to real-world datasets—from the disclosed lobbying activity of organized interests to the bill introductions of members of Congress. The core contribution of the project is that patterns in attention to policy issues are a function of a contagion process generated by cue-taking behavior among elites.
Advisors/Committee Members: Jones, Bryan D. (advisor), Baumgartner, Frank R (committee member), Wlezien, Chris (committee member), Roberts, Brian E (committee member), Theriault, Sean M (committee member).

Note: this citation may be lacking information needed for this citation format:Not specified: Masters Thesis or Doctoral Dissertation

University of Missouri – Columbia

27.
Cranfield, Joseph R., II.
The utilization of information operations coupled with agendasetting and integrated marketing communication in the prevention of genocide, mass atrocities, and or mass killings.

► Over the last 10-years, the focus of the U.S. Army has been on Counter-Insurgency (COIN) operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, the writing is on…
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▼ Over the last 10-years, the focus of the U.S. Army has been on Counter-Insurgency (COIN) operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, the writing is on the wall that military involvement in both locations will soon come to an end. Historically, when the Army is not involved in combat operations, it transitions to peacekeeping and humanitarian aid roles in various countries around the world. This raises the question as to whether the Army's training and force structure is sufficiently postured to handle such crises. This qualitative research will examine the kinds of arguments that are made by perpetrators and supporters of genocidal acts aimed at specific groups of people. More specifically, this study will analyze pro-genocide messages used by the media during the Rwanda, East Timor and Bosnia genocides. Using qualitative content analysis it will identify the types of messages that have been used to cause hate against others and develop a categorized list of those messages and their antithesis. Additionally, it will encourage senior civilian and military leaders as well as the U.S. Army Information Operations (IO) proponent to formulate training and appropriate force structure to ensure the U.S. Army can sufficiently combat such messages post Iraq and Afghanistan.
Advisors/Committee Members: Duffy, Margaret, Ph. D. (advisor), Thorson, Esther (advisor).

► The genocide in Rwanda was one of the worst human experiences within the 20th century. Throughout the 100 day genocide at least 800,000 people were…
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▼ The genocide in Rwanda was one of the worst human experiences within the 20th century. Throughout the 100 day genocide at least 800,000 people were killed, countless were wounded, and millions were displaced from their homes. Even though details supported the claim that genocide was in progress, the international community failed in its recognition and intervention efforts. This qualitative research study examines the New York Times and the Washington Post coverage of the Rwandan genocide and the American response as part of the media discourse. Through a textual analysis of 36 articles this research revealed six frames existed in depicting murder and American state actor's response regarding Rwanda: death and murder is an African reality, Rwandan murder is a reality distortion, visual reality of murder, strategic neglect, down-play of events, and recant, remorse, and apologetic. This research provides insight for government leaders, media institutions, academicians, and the international community on the challenges of reporting the Rwanda genocide in Africa and how the limited recognition, lack of knowledge, and negative perception of the region dismissed the reality of genocide which delayed appropriate responses.
Advisors/Committee Members: Volz, Yong (advisor).

Herbin, C. Victor, I. (2011). Silent voices: the New York Times and the Washington Post coverage of the Rwandan genocide and the American response. (Thesis). University of Missouri – Columbia. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/10355/14546

Note: this citation may be lacking information needed for this citation format:Not specified: Masters Thesis or Doctoral Dissertation

Chicago Manual of Style (16th Edition):

Herbin, C. Victor, III. “Silent voices: the New York Times and the Washington Post coverage of the Rwandan genocide and the American response.” 2011. Thesis, University of Missouri – Columbia. Accessed February 22, 2019.
http://hdl.handle.net/10355/14546.

Note: this citation may be lacking information needed for this citation format:Not specified: Masters Thesis or Doctoral Dissertation

MLA Handbook (7th Edition):

Herbin, C. Victor, III. “Silent voices: the New York Times and the Washington Post coverage of the Rwandan genocide and the American response.” 2011. Web. 22 Feb 2019.

Vancouver:

Herbin, C. Victor I. Silent voices: the New York Times and the Washington Post coverage of the Rwandan genocide and the American response. [Internet] [Thesis]. University of Missouri – Columbia; 2011. [cited 2019 Feb 22].
Available from: http://hdl.handle.net/10355/14546.

Note: this citation may be lacking information needed for this citation format:Not specified: Masters Thesis or Doctoral Dissertation

Council of Science Editors:

Herbin, C. Victor I. Silent voices: the New York Times and the Washington Post coverage of the Rwandan genocide and the American response. [Thesis]. University of Missouri – Columbia; 2011. Available from: http://hdl.handle.net/10355/14546

Note: this citation may be lacking information needed for this citation format:Not specified: Masters Thesis or Doctoral Dissertation

This case study is part of the field of public health and social sciences and aimed to investigate why and how was given the process of decentralization in the state of Santa Catarina, especially in the health field, having as the central point of analysis the moments of decision and pre-decision related to the problems and policies that were the object of the decision-making process. The understanding of this process passes by the identification of the key stakeholders and their different positions, the negotiation mechanisms, the strategic alliances for support and opposition of the policy and the arenas used as setting for this process. The empirical basis of this work, collected through documentary analysis and semi-structured interviews, was analyzed by the Multiple Streams Framework theoretical model of John W. Kingdon (2003), given its ability to explain how government agendas are formulated and changed. The empirical data revealed that the processes of discussion, negotiation and approval of the policies are as important as the specific content they enclose, and that the process of formulating public policies should not be detached from the political process. Regarding the model of Kingdon (2003), we noted that its use added important theoretical and methodological contributions to…

The model of Agenda-Setting stands out as one of the majors investigative lines on the subject of the cognitive effects of the media. After 30 years of research and hundreds of important publications about the theme, this paper adds up for building an evolution map of the model of Agenda-Setting. The methodology comprises the selection of the most relevan publications, the identification of the structural issues, their crossing with theoretical approaches and the analysis of the research development. At the end, this paper presents a summed frame of the hypothesis path since 1972.